Not to change the subject here, but I agree that these are the real contendors, but think we all need to start giving some credit to Orlando and not just toss them under the bus as an also ran pretender. Yeah we handled them a week or so ago, but that is the only loss they have had in their past 10 games I believe.

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I'm waiting to see if they can avoid their annual second-half collapse before I conisder Orlando a contendor.

Why do i have to respect him? He's a basketball player. In real life, they all cheat on their wives and do other things that i would consider not very moral.

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That's an extremely crass stereotype. How do you think the many morally upright, family values NBA players feel when people say these kinds of things so flippantly? And I don't want to hear some crude response such as, "they are paid to not be human and to take our crap without it bothering them". Because that's baloney. The money excuse is just a sorry attempt to excuse ourselves from being ugly towards other people. The real reason we think it's ok to do so is because the Internet is for all intents and purposes anonymous, at least on a sports talk website. People stereotype lawyers as well. Do you like that?

How about speculating if this is actually what Rip said? I read an old post from someone saying about Chris McCosky: "He never gets tired of being wrong"

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I think it's really fascinating to see things like this happen. Someone makes an unsubstantiated quote of someone. Someone posts it in a public forum. Everybody adds a little flavor to the stew. Soon enough, the sky is falling, Nazis are invading, our children are running off to be prostitutes, and a once-franchise player has become the spawn of Satan. We don't have anything to go off of to claim that Rip is not going to come right back and be the missing link that will push us over the top, accentuate everyone's skills and fit in nicely. It's blind paranoia, and every comment that expresses that paranoia makes the next person even more paranoid. I just hope that if Rip does come back playing well, that you guys will have the decency to admit that you went off the deep end just a bit here.

I think it's really fascinating to see things like this happen. Someone makes an unsubstantiated quote of someone. Someone posts it in a public forum. Everybody adds a little flavor to the stew. Soon enough, the sky is falling, Nazis are invading, our children are running off to be prostitutes, and a once-franchise player has become the spawn of Satan. We don't have anything to go off of to claim that Rip is not going to come right back and be the missing link that will push us over the top, accentuate everyone's skills and fit in nicely. It's blind paranoia, and every comment that expresses that paranoia makes the next person even more paranoid. I just hope that if Rip does come back playing well, that you guys will have the decency to admit that you went off the deep end just a bit here.

You ask when has Tay been a three point guy. How about 06-07. Tay made 39% of his 210 triples taken. Tay has shown to be very capable indeed of knocking down three's.

Last season, we had him play less, and he shot less threes as a percentage of his shots. He still shot 36% on 146 taken.

Now this season, he started out hitting on at least 2 threes in 6 of his first 8 games.

But then Curry started playing him 40 minutes, dropping Herrmann out of the mix.

Result. Tay missed a bunch of threes, and then just quit shooting them. He is 3 of 22 in December / January combined.

He was 0-16 covering the one month period from November 25 to December 26. Yes, a whole month of not any three's made by Prince. I was not just imagining things.

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Tay supposed to be a better 3 point shooter after the olympics, imo. Tay was primarily used as a defender and a spot up shooter during the Beijing games. So he must have practised shooting those 3s a lot.

I really don't care how accurate the quote was, my point is that it was one statement, we don't know exactly what was said (or if McConduit just gave his juicy version of the conversation), and then we all fell apart. Let's have the stamina to watch a few games with Rip back before we fall into one big neurotic heap. That's all I'm trying to say.

I think it best to respect everyone until they give you reason not to.

In real life, they all cheat on their wives and do other things that i would consider not very moral.

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This is a stereotype. For the record, all men are not shameless and without moral conviction. Likewise, all women are not perfect. The number of NBA wives that cheat might be equal to the number of husbands that do it.

I really don't care how accurate the quote was, my point is that it was one statement, we don't know exactly what was said (or if McConduit just gave his juicy version of the conversation), and then we all fell apart. Let's have the stamina to watch a few games with Rip back before we fall into one big neurotic heap. That's all I'm trying to say.

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I understand exactly what you are saying. I for one will not have any kind of a melt down based on something McCoskey wrote - unless I know the whole story. Like you say, it does not matter at this point how accurate the quote is. Until we actually know if the quote is accurate, or just something McCoskey is concocting to stir things up, its not time to tear into Rip.

I understand exactly what you are saying. I for one will not have any kind of a melt down based on something McCoskey wrote - unless I know the whole story. Like you say, it does not matter at this point how accurate the quote is. Until we actually know if the quote is accurate, or just something McCoskey is concocting to stir things up, its not time to tear into Rip.

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That's what i meant.
Remember everyone fell over AI when he missed practise in Nov, Pistons just talked to him and for them it was over and done with. Same will be with Rip.

That's an extremely crass stereotype. How do you think the many morally upright, family values NBA players feel when people say these kinds of things so flippantly? And I don't want to hear some crude response such as, "they are paid to not be human and to take our crap without it bothering them". Because that's baloney. The money excuse is just a sorry attempt to excuse ourselves from being ugly towards other people. The real reason we think it's ok to do so is because the Internet is for all intents and purposes anonymous, at least on a sports talk website. People stereotype lawyers as well. Do you like that?

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Well i was going to say AI cheats on his wife, but he's not the only one and i didn't want to get pitchforked by the AI brigade so i held my tongue and used a blanket statement. I highly doubt what is said about these players is 1/hurting their feelings, 2/even on thier radar, and 3/ something they even care about. Unless Sheed or some other player logs into this forum everyday and is creating a newsletter about my comments, i would be willing to bet my entire life's savings that my comments are just that comments on a message board that none of them read. And i really don't see a problem with posting these comments on a sports forum. The whole point is to be able to engage in coversation about basketball.

I'm sure if Tayshaun kept hearing about how he plays/is like a p*** (can i say that?) it would hurt his feeling in real life just as much as being told he was a cheater, but that's ok to say right ? or that Rip is a mentally-weak selfish you know what person ? If you're taking exception with my comments, then you should take exception with alot of what's posted on forums in general. If everybody censored themselves and only posted PC comments, Roscoe could just pack up and shut this place down.

And in terms of lawyers i hear those stereotypes to my face everyday and from my good friends as well (in fact more from them; jokingly and serious). If i let things that people say about lawyers affect me to that degree i would never leave my house. To be honest i couldn't care less. I know alot of lawyers are like that and while it's a stereotype most stereotypes don't appear out of thin air.

I think it best to respect everyone until they give you reason not to.

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As a basic human being yes, but respect does not = entitlement to something.

regardless of anything else, what rip said is disturbing, and it *is* similar to chauncey's quote about who's going to take the last shot in a close game. both quotes are disturbing because they display feelings of entitlement and inflexibility. that's not what the pistons are about. those kind of quotes, to me, say that they don't care about putting the team first...that they are more important than everyone else.

if rip doesn't change his attitude and won't even consider coming off the bench, then it's time to move him. coming off the bench is not an insult to his abilities...it's not like manu/odom/ak47 are considered second-rate players or anything, and he shouldn't care if it hurts his market value (like it did for jmax) because he just signed an extension!

the only issue is that if you trade him for a guy like camby/kaman, you overcrowd the frontcourt and lose a *lot* of depth at SG. but i'd rather have that than keep him around if he doesn't change his tune.